Israel diary - 2
Tales of Kibbutz, Tiberius and concrete.
I'm now relaxing (?) as a volunteer at a kibbutz called Ashdot
Ya'aqov Meuchad. The kibbutz is located about 10 km south of Lake
Kinneret (The Sea of Galilee) in the North of Israel. The idea of
volunteering is quite simple. As a volunteer, you work eight hours
a day 6 days a week on the kibbutz and in return you get room
and board and to experience kibbutz life and facilities (e.g. laze
in their pool).
The work that you do varies considerably. Generally, though it's
the jobs that no one else wants to do! here at the kibbutz there
are volunteers working in the kitchens, date farms and Spancrete
the kibbutz's cement works, hmm guess where I got landed! The factory
makes reinforced concrete beams
for buildings. I work with the
crane
on the morning shift which starts at 5 in the morning (stop laughing,
it's killing me!). The work is not exactly taxing - although the
heat is a killer! I finish relatively early in the afternoon which
leaves the rest of the day to myself to do, well, not a lot! I tend
to catch the sun, swim a little - it's a tough life! The kibbutz
is fairly isolated however, which means that there is little to
do during the week, although Friday scores pretty highly as a top
night. The music here is generally very good. They play generally
a very good combination of the latest songs mixed with a good smattering
of those, "God, I haven't heard that one in a awhile - it's really
quite good!" songs. The party last Friday for example was great.
There were two completely different types of music being played.
Inside was commercial 'studenty' type of stuff, with what can only
be described as a 'bitsa' (bitsa this and bitsa that) set outside.
The stage outside was decked with hay bales, while glow stick wielding
dancers gyrated. The music ranged from a sort of jungle, through
a bit of happy hard-core and then onto an Arabesque mix (I don't
think that it'll be the next big thing in the UK mind!). Did I mention
that the party was billed as a 'sex' disco? Well, I thought that
it was probably some sort of drag thang. Hmmm, not quite. Well,
it wasn't exactly a "...what it says on the tin" moment, but trying
to dance to Britney Spears whilst a hard core porn film is being
projected on to the wall is a most disconcerting experience (mind
you, dancing to Britney Spears is pretty disconcerting in its own
right!). Currently it's pretty relaxing here - but we'll have to
see how long it is before that turns into boredom! There are only
four volunteers here which makes for quite a quiet time. We've got
two guys from Korea, Sing and Lee (Hi guys!), and Antonio from Spain.
Spot on gentlemen one and all - I'll try and get a picture to put
up here soon...
Oh yes, and my folks came up
to visit me.
The next installment.
|
|